


Entr'acte: A Shadow’s Armor

by B_Radley



Series: Rise and Fight Again [27]
Category: Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Families of Choice, Family, Love, Multi, Unconventional Families, descriptiveness, gaze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 19:06:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13747362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: Fulcrum tries to describe a Shadow.





	Entr'acte: A Shadow’s Armor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SLWalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/gifts).



> From a prompt/challenge by SLWalker, for Ahsoka to describe my original character in a bit more detail from her gaze and POV.
> 
> Tried to fit it into my ‘canon’ of Jedi stuff, hope that it works. 
> 
> Thanks for the challenge.

Ahsoka awakens to the dim light of a Corellian morning. She shifts slightly in the bed as Corell’s light plays over the man in the bed to her right. He breathes easily, his eyes still beneath the eyelids. She knows that it won’t belong before those eyes open and light on her.

She thinks back to when she had first met him, rather than just seeing him in the corridors of the Temple. As a nine year old youngling, she had only seen him as yet another challenge to her supremacy in her age-group of the Clawmouse youngling clan. She starts as she realizes that she can barely remember what he looked like back then, as it was only shortly after he came to them as clan-master that he had grown out what his Master and the other adults had called ‘the Wookiee look’.

Her eyes play over his face as she searches her memory for that view. She realizes that this is part of his power—that arcane, little understood gift of the Shadow—even now as scattered and intermittent as that power had become.

His gift was to be forgettable. To blend in.

Ahsoka takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes and concentrates on shrinking her own birthright to a pinprick in her consciousness.

She slowly opens her eyes. _Does she really want to see him as others see him? Those not so attuned to his Force sense?_ She curses under her breath. _Are you really that shallow, Tano? You’ve always said to yourself that it wasn’t just his pretty face._

“Well,” she whispers. “Semi-pretty.”

Her eyes open, then widen. She touches his face with a sharp gasp, as her eyes tear. Where his face was all even angles with distinct features, the lines are—.

Her mind reels as she tries to describe what her eyes see. The lines are almost—.

Blurred.

Ahsoka moves her fingers down along his jawline. She sees the tips almost disappear into his skin as the mind-picture plays in her head. She shakes her head; closes her eyes, attempting to reconcile what the visual receptors in her head are seeing. She snaps her eyes open again.

His features remain almost unseeable, as the instant’s memory in her head plays tricks on her and forgets what she had seen even a microsecond before.

Ahsoka Tano slams the heels of her hands against her eyes as she tries to determine whether her shutting off that mystical connection—her own gift that had been there since she could remember—had driven her temporarily insane. She takes a deep, ragged breath and sits up. The sheet falls off of her. Just before she closes her eyes, they move over to the clothing hanging ready for the next day’s work on the valet.

A fine gray suit of wool, a pure white undertunic. The frock-style coat, long, as he prefers it. Tailored to his body for its role—his fight for the day as Corellia’s Covenant—his world’s protector. A part of his cover—his own protection. Hanging on hooks next to the valet, a medium-gray tunic with a gold and silver projectile-shaped shield and rank plaque seizes her attention.

She tracks her eyes to a space on the bulkhead of the old ship. A space with abstract Zeltron art hanging from it. Her perception pushes past the metal of the area. She knows that another hidden part of him hangs behind the panel.

A suit of Mando armor, also tailored to him by the loving hands of his late wife. Marked with her handprint, as well as that of a younger relative.

Ahsoka smiles and closes her eyes, reaching deep into the Force again, stripping away the disconnection from her mystical friend. She takes another deep breath, calming herself. Stripping away her fears of what she might see.

She opens her eyes and smiles. He lies there, sleeping peacefully as she has always remembered him when they wake together. On a whim, she pulls the sheet from his body. She grins as she starts to catalog him.

Her gaze starts at his hair—she had never told him this, as she knew that pain had caused it, but she liked the now-iron gray hue. She hadn’t minded the dark and gold brindle color of his hair before, but she truly appreciated, _well, maybe that is too mild of a word_ , his hair. She had never had to deal with it, herself, nor had she really paid attention to it on others. She touches her eyelids at the only real instance of hair that she possesses. _Well, except for those really tiny fine hairs on my neck, under the rear lek. More sensory than decorative. Especially when I feel his breath there._

She raps her knuckles on her forehead. _Focus, Tano_. She moves the same hand’s fingers through his hair. _Also kind of like that there isn’t as much. Don’t mind hugging a Wookiee, but this is a nice change._

Ahsoka feels her heart sink slightly as her fingers move southward to the three scars on his forehead. The uppermost, a very thin line, starts in the center of his forehead and moves to the left edge. Another one, barely a millimeter below, creases him to the opposite side of his head. She can see the tiny burn marks along their lengths.

Her middle finger dips down to what he had described as the first of the three scars gained in the space of a minute. Just above his right eyebrow, at a rising angle, the scar connects with the other two in the center, forming a three armed abstract star. It was as if the young clone, frantically wielding his Master’s lightsaber, had been an artist with the weapon, rather than a novice desperate to save himself from the vengeance of the armored and helmeted figure. Not a moment after the clone had plunged the same saber through the back and chest of that armored figure’s beloved Master, Shaak Ti. She shakes her head again, shoving the images away. The scars, shallow on his skin as they had been inflicted through a clonetrooper helmet and the reason they barely mark him, did not kill him. They and the ruined skin of his right shoulder, inflicted by a heavy blaster only a few moments after, or on his right hip from a lightsaber thrust are testaments to his strength.

She refuses to allow her eyes to linger on the mass of scars on his shoulder. In more intimate moments, she has no problem resting her eyes and lips on them. But not at this moment as she tries to catalog his looks.

The paleness of his scars against his forehead brings her thoughts to another aspect of what she sees. She had seen holos of his mother, her gold-to-light bronze skin a testament to her own heritage of two different worlds in the Mandalorian sphere.

As she looks closer at him, she curses herself for not paying attention more in those literature and poetry classes at the Temple. It is hard for her to describe his skin tone. A tiny bit darker than Obi-Wan Kenobi’s—one of the palest Jedi she had known, even a bit darker than Anakin’s desert-born skin. Not as dark as her own orange-bronze.

Ahsoka fumbles in her mind for a description. She finally stops the attempt. She concentrates on his face. She tries to compare it to the one other male lover she has had in her short life. _Well, at least until she had visited Zeltros during a damned fertility festival,_ she thinks sheepishly. The male had been a Togruta—hunter that she had grappled with in a night of despair and alcohol. She shakes that thought away. Nyx Okami was even more distant, from her time in the underworld of Coruscant—probably didn’t even count as a lover with their mutual fumblings.

Her eyes move downward. She runs her fingers through the sparse hair on his chest. _Not a great deal; just enough_. She giggles as she remembers a newborn Togruta infant, the daughter of his Master’s hunt-brother and his mate, twisting her small fingers in it as he held her against his chest, as she finally surrendered to sleep again. The sound that he had made was one that she had often tried to get him to duplicate with the same technique—tried but failed. It wasn’t quite the same.

She closes her eyes and begins to run her hands over his chest and arms, as her skin remembers the definition of his muscles. By the time they had become lovers, he had lost the bulk that he had gained in the years of trying to keep up with the fitness regimen of the Null, Alphas, and Beta-class troopers of his commandos. His muscles are leaner, ropier—the build of a runner or swimmer rather than a power-lifter.

She reaches down and kisses the only scar that she will catalog further in this inspection. The one over his right lung, just below the mess of his right shoulder. The one that she had inflicted, all those years ago, to keep him breathing on their shared Hunt.

She allows her hand to move down his belly. An outside observer might see a slight blush as her fingers slide through another example of thick hair. She Smirks as her hand falls over what that particular example half-conceals.

 _Don’t know if I have enough body of data to compare that to_. “Of course, the Temple literature and poetry classes didn’t exactly cover that,” she whispers to herself.

She jerks up as she realizes that an outside observer has been observing her. She looks up and sees Dani Faygan, her sleep-tousled hair and circles under her normally laughing eyes, the only testament to her harrowing experience on Rodia. An experience that was supposed to be marked by a vacation after that damned stormtrooper festival on Zeltros.

“How long have you been standing there?” she manages to get out. She hastily drops what she was holding.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was sleeping peacefully until I got woken up by an intense feeling of fear and uncertainty through the resonance. Came in here to see you staring at him and touching him.”

Ahsoka looks down. Dani walks over and lifts her chin with her fingers. She notices that the older woman is clad only in an open plaid flannel shirt, the gold and black colors highlighting her crimson skin.

A companion to a shirt draped over the foot of the bed, in azure rather than gold.

“Dani, I just saw him as other people might see him. I closed myself off to the Force. He was indistinct—fuzzy, almost. Is this how everybody sees him? Is my view just an idealized look at him?”

Dani reaches down and kisses her. “I don’t think so, _ta’in’gere_ ,” she says. Again, Ahsoka makes a note to look up that word and its meaning. The affectionate tone it is spoken with assures her that it isn’t the Zeltron word for ‘asshole.’

_Or at least partially assures her._

Dani looks down at Covenant. He continues to sleep, his face with a slight peaceful smile. She touches his hair. “Maybe the first time I met him. When I seduced him for work.” She gives Ahsoka a hooded look. “At least, partially for work.” She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes. “He was a bit indistinct. Handsome, but I couldn’t tell much beyond that. It was only a day or so later, on Corellia, after I had seen him interact with his Master and Draq’, that I think I truly saw him.”

“What did he look like?” Ahsoka whispers.

Dani laughs. “Much like now, only with much more hair.” Ahsoka shares her laughter. “I think we see him as he truly is. Everyone else, or at least those outsiders he doesn’t let in, see that fog.”

She turns and walks over to the dresser. She taps a part of the wood a certain way. Ahsoka’s eyes widen as the panel springs open. Dani reaches in and pulls a bottle out. She reaches down and pulls the cork from the top with her teeth and returns to the bed.

“You damned Corellians and your secret panels,” Ahsoka says. She doesn’t refuse the bottle that Dani hands to her. The whisky burns as it tumbles down to her gut.

Dani sits next to her on the bed. Her hand touches Covenant’s face. “I think that thing he does is part of his armor, his protection,” she says as she strokes his face.

Ahsoka’s eyes widen as she hears Dani give voice to her thoughts of a few moments ago. “I wonder how he does it? I don’t feel any bit of Force connection from him right now. That has to take up a lot of his power.”

“It’s taking a lot of my power not to open my eyes while two little birds talk about me and paw me,” comes a drawling voice.

Both Ahsoka and Dani stare at each other. Neither of them had felt, from their different gifts any sense that he was awake.

“It was especially difficult trying to keep blood from rushing to a certain part while it was being manipulated.” He growls as a crimson hand reaches a bit lower and squeezes. He opens his eyes.

 _Finally_ , Ahsoka thinks, _I get to try to describe those._

The warm moves into her chest as those warm, sea-green windows, with a bit of reflected gold lock on her face. His lips morph into the crooked grin that makes the organ in her chest flip.

“How are you doing it, Bait?” she blurts out. “That has to take a lot of energy—energy that you don’t have.”

He reaches up and kisses her. He breathes for her for several minutes. When he moves back, he grins again as he tries to catch his breath. “Lot easier to let those I love and trust, in,” is all that he says.

She reaches up and grabs his hair. He winces. “A little more than that, sport,” she says, the imperious quality seeping into her voice.

“I have done it for so long, it requires little Force energy; not even enough to register.” He looks down. “Don’t know how it would work with other Force users. Never asked anyone else at the Temple ‘how do I look’?” he finishes. His grin flares again. “Except for the five minutes I was an insecure adolescent.”

“That’s a long damned five minutes,” both Dani and Ahsoka simultaneously snark. “It ain’t over yet,” Dani finishes amid their laughter.

Ahsoka realizes that he has a particular look when being teased. He looks down and to the right, about a centimeter. She laughs as she realizes that she has always known this. _Probably from so much practice at teasing him._

She is hit with a realization. “Bait, I remember now. I remember the first time we met. The other younglings said there was something weird with your face. I laughed and went along with them, but I remember now. I didn’t see anything weird.” She sees that he is waiting for it. “Other than the obvious, of course,” she says, rewarding him for his patience.

Dani smiles. “I think I may have an answer for that, Ahsoka,” she says. “I talked about it a bit with Ti after I saw him as he was. She too, said that she had never seen anything different about him.”

The significance of her simple statement strikes both Ahsoka and Bryne somewhere between their jaws and their hearts.

Dani smiles, reaching out and touching both of their cheeks. “Me. Nola. Meglann, now. That Pantoran asshole who seems to love trying to stab me to death every time she sees me—at that two sets of eyes roll to the overhead—we are all in both of your hearts. For you, Ahsoka, maybe Riyo is there, as well. Draq’ and Phygus—the Organas are there, for different reasons.” She takes a sip from the bottle.

“Each of us probably had to earn Bryne’s trust, to get in under his shielding, or whatever it is,” Dani continues. “In varying degrees. His big ‘brother’, was probably the first.” They both smile as they think of the small slicer. A fountain of snark who has wormed his way into all of their hearts.

Dani looks away, as if gathering the courage or the words to say what was on her mind. Ahsoka and Bryne both touch her cheeks and move her purple eyes to them.

“I think that you are not just a part of his heart like the rest of us, Ahsoka,” she says softly. “I think you may be part of the fabric. Ti might be the only other one.”

Ahsoka feels her emotions roil at the words. She manages to find her voice. “I think that he may be the same for me.” She smiles, looking at him. “He is part of the fabric.”

Dani nods, her eyes having transitioned to the black with the pure emotion in the room “I think there might be others for you as well, Ahsoka.”

Ahsoka is silent. She sees and hears images in her mind. A tall Kel Dor picking her up. A dry Coruscanti accent, filled with snark and wisdom. A tall young man with a scar through his eye, laughing at something she had said, over caf. Somewhere a blond clone—one who may or may not be lost sits at the edges. Just as an oversized clone—a brother that he is unsure of his fate, sits in his.

She hugs Dani to her. “Thank you, my heart,” she says, using language from the world that they had visited together. “You helped me describe him, to him, and to myself.”

“Hey,” Dani replies. “I may be all wrong. I am not an expert on Force-users, other than a propensity for getting naked with a few.” She laughs at their blushes, then sobers. “But I think I am an expert on the heart.”

Dani returns the embrace, squeezing the younger woman until her ribs creak. She stands. “As much as I would like to explore a few scientific theories about Force-users with some hands-on work, I need more sleep and then an ungodly amount of calories after my so-called vacation.” Her smile softens. “Plus, I think you two need to unravel the armor a bit more.”

Bryne reaches up and kisses Dani. “Okay, cuz,” he says. “Make sure you tell us about your adventures. I know it was hard, based on what little Draq’ told me. You don’t get to hold it in, just ‘cause you heal everybody else.”

After a moment, she nods, then turns and exits the compartment.

Ahsoka pulls Bryne to her, holds him just as tightly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not coming awake when I was looking at you and trying to figure out how to describe you. Or at least pretending to be asleep.”

He nods. His eyes take on a devilish glint. “Well, now that I am awake, I could help you describe something that you were at a loss for words for.”

She shoves him backwards, climbing on top of him, their laughter rising. “I could describe it, but I didn’t think it was polite to use words like ‘snail.”

As he flips her over, she marvels that she gets to see him without his armor.


End file.
